Department of Homeland Security

The Omaha Tribe’s serious financial management weaknesses combined with inadequate and missing documentation resulted in unreliable financial records. As a result, we have little confidence that the transactions recorded in the accounting system actually occurred or that the tribe completed its FEMA...

We determined that DHS did not always follow statutory requirements when entering, modifying, and overseeing its agreements. Inadequate internal policies contributed to DHS falling short of meeting all statutory requirements for using Other Transaction Authorities (OTA). In addition, DHS staff...

We determined that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) automation of the N-400 Application for Naturalization has not been successful. Specifically, we found that ELIS did not have the critical functionality necessary for end-to-end N-400 processing. The problems in N-400...

As FEMA moves into the recovery phase for Hurricane Harvey in Texas, it will begin to obligate millions, if not billions, of dollars from the Disaster Relief Fund for administrative costs and for Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation grants to eligible State, tribal, and local governments and...

We determined that the Office of Health Affairs (OHA) has not implemented an effective organizational framework for safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII). While OHA appointed a Privacy Officer, this official lacked authority and resources to carry out the required privacy management...

During this reporting period, the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) completed significant audits, inspections, and investigations to promote economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity in the Department’s programs and operations.We issued 72 reports, including management alerts, and...

CBP took sufficient steps to resolve the January 2, 2017 outage on the same day it occurred. CBP’s initial actions to resolve this outage were unsuccessful for several hours. Ultimately, the CBP Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) decided to revert system queries...

We determined that FEMA is not meeting its monitoring of Operation Stonegarden grantee responsibilities because it does not have accurate financial data to identify grantees that require additional monitoring. Also, FEMA has included just 4 of 79 Operation Stonegarden awards made during FYs 2011–14...

Napa State Hospital must improve its policies, procedures, and business practices to account for and expend FEMA grant funds according to Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines. Specifically, it did not properly document and adequately account for project costs; comply with its overtime policy; and...

In March 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a summons to Twitter, Inc., regarding the @ALT_USCIS user account for the purpose of identifying the owner of the account under 19 U.S.C. 1509. During our review, we identified issues concerning CBP's policies and practices with respect...